How about using ScheduleOnce

It’s free and requires not registration, takes up only a few Kb and integrates directly with Google calendars

Pretty interesting for a site that was set up to record my rambling journey through the developing platform and the addition of third party apps and podcasting

What a great site for storytelling.  Great illustrations and very simple interface make this a must use for creativity.  You can also ask others to collaborate in putting your story together.  I shall be asking my G’daughter (8 years old) to contribute and collaborate with me.

Do check it out, I think you’ll find it most engaging

As well as changing the appearance of the dashboard, which is great, incidentally, he has limited his ads to archived posts, where you are shown the EB Campus invite for multiple accounts.  This is much more in line with the educational nature of this platform and I think it’s fine.

I hope others feel the same way and have continued to use the EB platform for their blogging needs.  I have recently started a new EB personal site and I really liked the process as it was all so familiar to use.

All I hope is that the current revenue streams are sufficient for him to continue to offer a great user platform and a simple yet sophisticated blogging experience.

It would be great to hear others’ views, so please use the comment function

There are lots of views on this and if you’d like to take a look, go to the two forum areas

on ads

contentlink ads

and perhaps, you’d like to add your comment there or here

See post Setting up Google docs to edit and publish your posts

An application for this is multiple posts to a class blog from different students and locations.  The Google account has an age limit of 14 I think so some limitations here

Great stuff James – we can now choose different font sizes, embed media, undo, add custom characters etc

Have fun

This PhotoFunia looks great for adding effects to your pics – I think the kids will love it

1 Get a free Flickr account
2 You need a phone (or pc) with email facility
3 Sign into your Flickr account
4 Go to http://www.flickr.com/tools/mobile/
5 Under ‘Tips & Tricks for Uploading’ click on ‘upload by email’
6 Your account will now be given an email address to send your photos
7 Under this is a place to add a tag to a specific set – this tag can then be used to select all those photos you send and embed them in a slideshow. Save this setting
8 Save this as a contact on your phone under ‘Flickr’
9 Take a photo
10 Choose to send it by email
11 Add a comment in the body of the text message – this will be a descriptor for the photo when uploaded
12 Send
13 In Flickr, search the tag you added
14 this will now select all those uploaded pics
15 If you want to embed them in a blog etc, just choose share and copy the code
16 Paste this into your blog/website as html
17 Voila

This summit is aimed at bringing together publishers, authors, technology leaders, editors, librarians, other educators to explore where content is headed and how we can take advantage of this dynamic world to fully engage both students and teachers.

Vocaroo needs no sign up – just use it.  You can record a podcast (voicemail) and then email it or post it online using an embed code or an email link

Link to the file

Well done Vocaroo

Thanks to Joe Dale for the tip

• Just open up the school calendar
• In the bottom RH corner, there is a Google Calendar logo with a + sign
• Click on the + sign
• This will load up your Google calendar and ask you if you would like to import the calendar
• Agree to this and you have successfully merged them

I hope this is useful

BTW – I haven’t managed to find and undo functionm for this – perhaps someone can help

Take a look at the video

You can register different unique account names numerous times using your own e-mail address by doing this:

emailaddress+1@gmail.com
emailaddress+2@gmail.com
emailaddress+3@gmail.com
emailaddress+4@gmail.com
emailaddress+5@gmail.com

Carey Pohanka suggested that you could use the student’s name instead of a number, and then you won’t have any problems identifying them

emailaddress+student name@gmail.com

I didn’t know that trick, many thanks

All activity the websites under these accounts will be sent to your original, derivative e-mail (i.e. emailaddress@gmail.com). This way, you’ll be able to give each student a unique application account, while also being able to monitor their account’s activity.

So, if you want to get some opinions easily, then just use Google Forms – you can get the analytics when the form returns start coming in.

1. sign up for a free Google account
2. go to “My account”
3. choose “docs”
4. click on “new” menu then “form”
5. start filling in your requirements

you can have a whole variety of answer formats, from multiple choice to checkboxes

Check out the K-12 feedback form for a good example

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I was impressed with the simplicity of the interface and the range of functions it could perform.

As usual, it’s free and is to be used with 14+ – I plan to use it to work with a group of leading teachers to continue the conversations begun at a conference.

So, I suggest you get together with a group or do a shoutout on Twitter and have a look at what it offers.
 

“How do I stream live from my mobile to my blog”

In fact, you might wonder why you would need to.

There are lots of reasons

You might wish to do a range of interviews at a conference and allow colleagues back at school to hear them live, or listen later.

You might be at a field trip and have lots of interesting things to relay to other members of the class – perhaps someone who is being schooled at home due to illness, or cannot participate for some other reason.

You might want to be broadcasting on-the-fly to keep the content alive and raw and for lots of folks to access this live

Perhaps you might have some ideas that you could add as comments

Just sign up for Qik – it’s free

you will then get a text message

click on the link and install the software

Start streaming – it’s really simple

Also records your video to the Qik site

Allows iTunes subscription

To achieve this you need

1. a mobile phone with unlimited data package
2. a mobile phone that is supported by Qik
3. a mobile phone which takes video

Well, now you can specify when the video will start from – it’s called Deep Linking

Here’s an example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bibCui3lFM#t=1m45s

the bit at the end determines where the video will start – in this case,

1m 45s in – simple eh

read more at TechCrunch

Well I think friv has it all – around 200 arcade games to keep you occupied for those dark winter months

thanks to A really different place

Why would you want to convert a PPT file to video anyway?

Well, you may want the PPT to go out with music to make it more appealing or you may want it to be iPod compatible.  Both of these are possible

Basically, your powerpoint needs some action

• slide transitions with timings or
• voice narration

if you don’t have any action, then it will remain as a PPT file.

• Get an authorSTREAM account (free)
• upload the PPT file
• wait till it is converted – may take an hour or so
• Download the video file or
• embed it into your blog or add it to iTunes (not managed to do this bit yet!)

You can also do all this from within PowerPoint using authorPOINT lite (free)

• this adds another item to your PowerPoint menu bar
• click on the authorPOINT icon
• This will then allow you to directly upload to
• WizIQ or
• AuthorStream

Broadcasts can be recorded if you want and then UStream and it seems that people using UStream then upload them to Blip TV.  I presume this is because UStream don’t host the end recording – can anyone enlighten me as I haven’t managed to research this bit fully yet.

Why would you want this in your classroom – how about a hamstercam, a bird table cam, broad bean cam etc

For a bit more detail check out November learning blog

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

There’s lots to choose from and include games, entertainment and tools – here’s a one to start with

I’m always fascinated by the growth of internet information and thank all of you for taking a look and leaving your comments. A number of others have set up sites to help with setting up Edublogs blogs and I’m sure anyone who is new will find the answers very quickly.

I hope you have found the tips and hints useful in either getting started or developing new functions for your sites

Here’s to lots of new bloggers

Mike

BTW, CleVR is really VERY simple to use and is helped if your camera has the panorama shot setting as mine does. If not, just remember to keep the photos at the same level and overlap at least 1/4

Joe Dale has this on his blog and I think it’s a great step forward – thanks again Joe

Mofuse is free and easy to use

Joe says

Just imagine doing the same for your departmental MFL blog where you could encourage your pupils to access written and audio material on their mobiles outside of the classroom in their own time. What a great idea!

Just use your mobile to go online and add in the website address – note no www et voila! Blog feeds on your mobile http://edublogstutorials.mofuse.mobi/

There’s also a badge in the sidebar with the address linked to it

I have the BBC news sent directly to my blog and it is updates automatically – so no work for me.

There should be a plugin called Aggr which makes this task really easy and it seems to have now disappeared – hence the reason my feed was not working.

To work around this, you need to use a third party (free) site called Pageflakes.

• sign up for Pageflakes
• if you are very visual, you can use this to read all your feeds
• you can import these feeds from another reader if you want to try and see how it looks
• there’s a menu button (literally a button)
• in there you will see on the LHS  ‘add RSS feed’
• click on this and ad the rss feed for the site you want to use
• you can choose to import all your feeds
• add your opml file where is asks
• you get this file by clicking the ‘export’ option in your reader
• in google, it says ‘manage my subscriptions’
• this will bring all your feeds in for you to see and use
• choose the feed you want to add to your blog
• click on the email logout the top of the feed box
• choose ‘take a flake’
• copy the code
• note the page will need to be set to public in order to work
• paste the code into a post using the ‘html’ tab or
• paste it into a sidebar widget box
• voila

check out my BBC news feed

The site is mystudiyo and is free to use

Joe had a French quiz that looked pretty good and you are able to grab the code and add these to your own blogs, so you do not need to create them all from scratch – you can share

There’s also a facility to have a quiz where users can ad in their own questions – moderated, of course, so you can get your class to contribute as well as consume.

Mysudiyo.com is a great free site that really brings quizzes to Edublogs. You can add pictures, video and up to 4 answers for each question. The potential is great

I have made up a quick demo just to see how this works and embeds

CleVR is a UK based company and I think they’re well worth a mention.

Uses:

• VR tour of the classroom, playground etc
• Field trips
• insides of buildings

do you have any great ideas?

Oh yes, and it can be embedded in a post, which is why I think it’s so cool – thanks to Joe Dale for that link

See how it’s done CleVR Stitcher tutorial screencast

A tag cloud takes a look at the whole of your site and then prioritises the most used words  by size.  This is fully customisable to suit your design ideas but is a good way to show students what’s of top interest on your site at the moment

It’s all free and provided by ZoomClouds 

Just sign up and follow the very simple instructions.  My tag cloud is the default one so I didn’t need to change anything

There’s an embed code which is simple to use

authorSTREAM lets you upload Powerpoints, rate them, email them, comment on them and embed the Flash player in blogs and websites.

SlideShare is similar, while Scribd supports the widest range of formats. ZohoShow is another, while the ThinkFree Office suite also offers embedding of documents.

It also seems to have a slightly bigger player. I also notice that my Slideshare instructions have reverted to the original as the new, quick method does not seem to work anymore – see the Powerpoint category for more information

If you want to see more on video, click the ‘Video’ link in my categories on the right sidebar.

Firefox Add-ons

I bought this on an 18 month contract as an upgrade, but also to access the next level of mobile access. Well it has taken me 2 days to work out how to connect my Macbook, but it is a very simple task, when you know where to look. I found lots of forum discussions and suggestions about using scripts and lots of Readme files. Well, it turns out I didn’t need any of these. Well done Apple, once again connectivity is superbly easy. First, you need to download the corresponding Modem Scripts from Ross Barkman and locate them in a particular folder and then I simply had to use the connection manager and add the code *99#, leave the password and username empty and it just connected, like that. You do need to ask O2 to set up all your connections otherwise your web access is not activated – silly default eh? So now I can use my mac wherever I go and access the internet for free – not sure? So far O2 have said about browsing the net

• the data add on is an unlimited and not a fair use as I had been advised, so it can be used 24/7 on a laptop or phone
• there is a 200Mb limit on all browsing on a laptop or phone, so not unlimited
• the data is all chargeable via laptop but free on phone
• this service is not available via laptop

So, all clear then So currently, I shall be trying it out and seeing if there is a charge or not when I get my bill – I have used this a little and this month’s bill shows nothing. Check out these videos – thanks to Joe Dale for these – they’re about using Fring – free software instead of Skype Using Fring 1 Using Fring 2

1. make sure you have a google account – free
2. go to google docs and start a new document – like Word
3. write your information for your post
4. save the file – this ensures your post has a title
5. click on the ‘share‘ button on the rhs menus
6. click ‘publish as web page‘
7. There is then a choice of ‘publish document’ and ‘post to blog’
8. click ‘change your blog site settings’ under the ‘post to blog’ button
9. choose ‘my own server/custom‘
10. API is moveable type API
11. URL – put in your address where is says ‘Your site/Path‘
12. mine looks like this http://miketemple123.edublogs.org/TO/xmlrpc.php – ie set up for a Wordpress API so just add the extra /TO/xmlrpc.php to the endo of your blog address
13. Under existing blog settings, put in your edublogs username and password
14. Add in your blog title
15. Tick ‘include document title‘
16. click OK
17. Now when you’ve finished your post, click ‘share‘ and then ‘publish as a web page’ then publish to blog
18. let me know what you think of this – applications please

Why would this be useful – perhaps getting the students to post via Google docs could work.

This could be a great way to get your students to do a writeup for your class blog. Just have a class login for Google docs and have them all log in and create then save their posts in Google docs. Then, I think it would be advisable for you to publish them using the ’share’ menu, without lettinng the students in on this function. This way, you can do multiple and collaborative writeups – any other ideas out there?

Unable to get pictures in at the right size at the moment via Google docs, otherwise this seems to work well – I think this is a Safari-specific issue

Advantages

• easier to make multiple posts
• spellchecking built in
• can add in tables
• headers and footers
• strikeout, superscript and subscript
• collaborative aspect to posts
• ability to indent
• highlighting – this doesn’t seem to show up in Edublogs

cell1	cell2
cell3	cell4

• editing is much much quicker
• you can probably upload a .doc file to Google docs and then edit it quickly before posting

Disadvantage

• at the moment, no way to categorise or tag posts

If anyone would like an invite to help look into this and set up some instructions, please let me know

I have uploaded one to test this out – Bip.tv automatically converts them all to flash and then they can be embedded using their player, straight into your post, just brilliant – with unlimited upload space. It just gets better and better

You can also add this to iTunes so folks can easily subscribe to your channel by clicking on the iTunes Dashboard Pane videos will need to be in the QuickTime format to work with iTunes, so the site says

So once again, a complete set of ticks in the box for Blip.tv

BTW, I have changed the player size to 450 x 355 and this seems to work great – do this by just editing the numbers after you have pasted in the code

There are new ‘dongles’ coming onto the market that offer 1gb of surfing for about £10 a month – this equates to only about 1 hour a day. This is hardly a great deal and is really only going to be used by those who MUST have access for business etc.

Well, hang on – I’ve been looking at a new mobile phone as mine is up for renewal. It’s a choice between the iPhone and what? O2 currently have the Nokia N95 8Gb phone – top of the range for around £35 a month on an 18 month contract – dig in more

This includes 600 minutes calls and 1000 texts AND you can take out a FREE, unlimited (fair use) data add-on.

before reading the following, please check out Mobile internet connection UK update

This allows the N95 to be used as a mobile internet 3G adapter*, giving you access to the internet wherever you go and take your laptop with you*. It connects using bluetooth, so no cables needed. You can, of course, use the data add-on to access the internet on your phone too via 3G. It also has satnav built-in. If you’re in a wi-fi hot-spot, you can also use your phone wirelessly too. So, if like me, you’ve not yet got to grips with mobile hand-held internet, here’s a possibility.

You can also download Skype mobile (via Fring) and call folks all over the world for free* (Skype – to Skype) direct from your mobile – now that’s interesting

Stuff changes all the time, but I thought it was worth mentioning for those who are frustrated not having access everywhere – like me! It means I won’t have to spend an extra £10 – 15 a month or £1 a day charge* to connect when I visit my parents and introduce my dad to the fun of making a VoiceThread story to go with some of his great photos

The transfer speed seems to be about 250 Kbps, so OK for most things

Note – please check all this information for yourself before trying this – however O2 offer 14 day trial if it doesn’t work out right for you* – update this is not available from the shops – if you sign up, it’s all yours – once again, contradictory info from the O2 people

The great stuff goes all the way to 100, so don’t ignore the little ones like Toondoo

1. sign up for a Flickr account
2. upload some photos
3. go to the badge page - not sure where the link is at this moment
4. choose the badge shape
5. select the other options offered
6. copy the code in the box
7. open up an Edublogs post in edit mode
8. Write in any text you wish to have,
9. click on the code tab at the top
10. put the cursor where you want the badge to appear
11. paste in the code
12. Publish
13. enjoy

Note:  this was not as simple as it looks – I ended up with lots of unwanted code in the post and had to delete it manually – anyone any ideas what I’m doing wrong?

Also, I’m unable to find the link on the Flickr page which leads to me finding the embed code – dohh – I’m not feeling very bright with this embed stuff – I’m hoping Patricia is reading this and can give me the right way to do it – again!

Once again any help will be welcome

It is straight forward to do

1. sign up for a free Scribd account
2. upload a document
3. find the ‘embed’ box
4. copy the code
5. open up a post in edit mode
6. add any text that you wish – descriptions etc
7. click the code tab at the top
8. place your cursor where you want your document to show up
9. click paste
10. click publish
11. enjoy
    

1.  go to your online picasa web albums
2. check the  settings in Google
3. change this to English (US)
4. to embed your slideshow
5. click on embed slideshow
6. copy the code in the box
7.  open up your post in Edublogs in edit mode
8. add any text you would like to add- eg a description
9. click on the code tab at the top of the post
10. select where you would like the show to begin
11. paste in the code
12. change the height to 355 and the width to 450
13. click publish
14. enjoy